I'm on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For 18 months I'm living in the Retalhuleu, Guatemala area, teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so excited to be in Guatemala!

Beautiful Guatemala

Me with a random field worker. I love the knife!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Earthquake and Miracles

Hello everyone!!It sounded like the earthquake went pretty public,
I really don’t know because we don’t watch TV. My mom says everyone wants to
hear how it was. Just so ya know, we are like 1:30 from San Marcos, the place
most affected. Growing up in West Texas, I had no idea what an earthquake felt
like before the mission, so this is all new for me. This one was really strong
and everyone freaked out big time, but where we were no one got hurt at all,
nothing fell down, nothing was affected. When it was happening everyone just
ran out of their houses because they could all easily fall down. My comp and I
were outside of this mean lady's house trying to get her to come to the door.
She won’t give permission so that her 17 year old son can get baptized, and she
wouldn’t even talk to us, and so when ground started shaking, I say, totally
serious, "Awesome, maybe she’ll come outside now!" She didn’t, but almost. I think it was a sign
from Heavenly Father telling her to give him permission, but I guess she didn’t
feel the same. Oh well we are working on her. I really wish I could give a
cooler story about the earthquake, but that’s about it. It’s been the main
topic of conversation for the past week with the people. There were lots of
rumors that within 48 hours another would hit worst, but nope. I bet that y’all
know more about it than I do, I’d love to know what the missionaries in San
Marcos were doing, how it all went down, but I haven’t heard anything.
Hopefully another one doesn’t hit!Ok well everything’s been crazy here in Muluá! We
are crazy!!! We have had lots of miracles, and I think we’ll have a few more.
We are doing awesome! Here are a few of the great things that happened.1. WEDDING AND BAPTISM OF IDELIA and niece
HELEN!!!!!We are really happy because the wedding and baptism
went smooth and all turned out well. We kept it really simple, just decorated a
bit and had a beautiful cake made by our RS pres. Everyone seemed really happy.
We didn’t invite many people, just a few members and our investigators (more on
that in #2!) The newlyweds looked SO NERVOUS! They were frozen when the lawyer
was marrying them, they’re both really shy. A really special moment for me was
when Idelia's now father-in-law shared with us how grateful he was for
everything. He explained to us that about a year ago his whole family was
inactive, but that he and 8 year old Helen started going to church again even
though his whole family was falling apart and he and his wife almost got
divorced. He said that he prayed so much that things would change. Well, we’ve
had the opportunity to work with the whole family (of 8ish) the past 2 months,
and now most of them are pretty much active again! He knows as well as we do
that they’re not out of the woods yet, but they’re on their way :) And now his
daughter and daughter-in-law are members! I was really touched when he was
explaining this to us because I honestly hadn’t thought of it all like that.
But seriously all this was the Lords timing and the Lord answering his prayers.
What a privilege it’s been to work with them, to see changes in them, to
see that their home is happier and different. And now they’re all members! They
still have a ways to go, but I really have high hopes for the whole family. It
was a really special wedding-baptism for this reason, and also for some other
miracles below!2. MIRACLE!! Ok so this next story is definitely
in my top2 mission miracles, I just hope I can explain it well so y’all can
capture it. So, apart from Idelia, the partial family we just baptized, we are
teaching 3 other families/partial families (I’ve mentioned most of them
before), and they’re all pretty positive, they’ve all been to church at least a
few times, but they all have their special challenges and needs. So it’s really
rare to have 4 positive families at once, so the mission leaders are all
hovering around telling us we have to baptize them all -- but it’s not quite
that easy! But our impossible goal last week became….. bring all 3 families to
the baptism. I mean, it really was an impossible goal, but we just knew that it
would help the families get excited about their own baptisms. And just a
reminder, normally if you want to bring someone to church or a meeting, you
have to go and get them, and sometimes drag them there. To make a long story a
little shorter, we'll call them fam. 1, fam. 2 and fam. 3 -- We had invited
them a few days before, and went to pass by for each of them. We go to fam1,
their extended family lie to us and tell us that they aren’t there.We give up on them, disappointed, and go with
fam. 2.Their neighbors say that the
whole family already left to go to the baptism --what?! There’s no way?! We couldn’t believe it until we saw it. We
literally ran a mile until sure enough, we saw them in the distance almost at
the church! YAY! One down! Miracle! Now to fam. 3; we run to their house and
wait and wait for them to get ready.They
were taking forever and we were already going to be a half hour late for our
own baptism, so we left.We weren’t sure
if they’d make it or not.We get to the service and fam. 2 is there,
yay!The wedding starts.... and in walks
fam.1 out of nowhere! They came?! We about died. And then, 20 minutes
later...fam.3 shows up too! So in the end all 3 families showed up BY
THEMSELVES and all enjoyed it :) Ha-ha!We had nothing to do with it, really. We were just running (literally
running) all over town for the heck of it, because the all showed up! Now they
are all one big step closer to their own baptisms.

We are so stressed now. We are trying to do everything to help these 3
families and a few other investigators we have. We are so close with so many
people. Man, they’ve all got to get baptized! It would be crazy to baptize them
all, but it’s our goal. It has to be our goal! I mean, I’ve got 3 weeks left --
this is it! Do or die. Go big and go home! We are super pumped about this week
and have some big stuff planned. So we’ve got to do this.

I really appreciate your
support and prayers. I know that this is God’s work. We have seen so many
miracles here and will continue to see them. I know that the church is true and
that families are so important to our Heavenly Father, that He has a special
plan for them. We missionaries are here looking for them so we can help them
learn about this plan. I love being a missionary and am so grateful for my area,
my comp, and for everything that is helping me focus until the end. I’m just
trying not to think about it too much! Yikes!!! Well, thanks for everything and
I hope that y’all have a great week.

A Great Way to Write to Me

Go to dearelder.com and you can email a letter to me. They print the letter and put it in the pouch that's headed to my mission. Pouch letters are mailed from SLC to the mission home.

Email Me!

kylie.gilland@myldsmail.net

Write to Me or Send a Package

Hermana Kylie Blake Gilland

Guatemala Retalhuleu Mission

Iglesia Mormona, Boulevard Centenario

Salida a Coatepeque, Zona 2, Apt Postal 26

Retalhuleu

Guatemala

The Blog Master

Hi- I'm Beth Gilland, Kylie's mom. I will be keeping Kylie's missionary blog for her over the next 18 months while she is serving in Guatemala. I am a novice blogger, so I am learning as I go. Please feel free to email me if you have questions about Kylie, or if you would like to receive her letters via email. Email me at gillandfam2@sbcglobal.net